


Higher Education

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is hiding something from the Doctor and he’s determined to find out what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Higher Education

**Title** : Higher Education  
 **Pairing** : Ten II/Rose  
 **Summary** : Rose is hiding something from the Doctor and he’s determined to find out what. [](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/) fic for [](http://shinyopals.livejournal.com/profile)[**shinyopals**](http://shinyopals.livejournal.com/). Thank you for being patient. *SMOOCH*  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Word Count** : 3, 700  
 **A/N** : Thank you to [](http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/profile)[**_thirty2flavors**](http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/) for the beta and to [](http://mrv3000.livejournal.com/profile)[**mrv3000**](http://mrv3000.livejournal.com/) for the prompt! <3 Also, I'm really sorry for my limited grasp of anything to do with physics. Just remember that it's a parallel world. *waves hand*

 **Excerpt** : _He brushed a few twigs and leaves out of his hair, trying his best to seem sincere and not at all like he had just chased his... girlfriend type... person... through half of London without her knowledge._

The Doctor crept behind a car, dodged around a woman walking her Yorkshire terrier, and then flattened himself against the edge of the café, creeping forward to peer into the window. The woman with the Yorkshire terrier stopped and shot him a disapproving look. The terrier sat down at the woman’s feet, its small beady eyes seeming to focus suspiciously on the Doctor.

“I’m a... window washer!” the Doctor hastily explained to the woman. He brushed a few twigs and leaves out of his hair, trying his best to seem sincere and not at all like he had just chased his... girlfriend type... person... through half of London without her knowledge. “Just performing a routine check of the work area. You can never be too careful.” He knocked his knuckles against the brick to prove his point.

The Yorkshire barked at him, as if in warning, but then the woman turned and continued on her way, shooting the Doctor one last baleful look over her shoulder. The Doctor harumped and then ducked down, head disappearing beneath the window.

There, he paused, wondering for the first time _why_ he was doing this. Okay, so Rose had been late every Thursday for a week. “Got caught up at work,” she always said, but with a smile that was just a touch too wide and a tad too bright. Besides, what work related emergency happened _every_ Thursday night at the _exact_ same time?

No, there was something else going on. Something Rose was deliberately keeping from him.

The Doctor hesitated below the window, heart pounding very hard. He trusted her, didn’t he? Absolutely. With his life, even. She would tell him what was going on when she was ready. Until then, he should respect her privacy.

The Doctor considered all that, vaguely registering that it would be the mature and sensible thing to do, and then, taking a deep breath, raised his head to peek into the café.

It took him a moment to find Rose—but when he did, it felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. She was in a booth in the back, head bent low and deep in conversation with a man the Doctor had never seen before. He was foreign—from India or Pakistan, and had short cropped hair, broad shoulders, and wore a small pair of spectacles of his nose. As the Doctor watched, he shook his head at Rose, laughed, and then murmured something to her. She smiled sheepishly in response before glancing down at the table.

The Doctor stood up, breath coming out in tightened gasps, unable to look away from the café window. He swallowed hard, thinking about how he trusted Rose and how he wanted to respect her privacy and how he never—truly—thought this could be what it looked like (Rose would _never_ )—and then he was moving, pushing the door to the café open and striding over to them. He was dimly aware that other patrons stared at him as he went past, old men looking up from their newspapers, teenage girls stopping their conversations mid-giggle.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he reached the table, breathing hard. The bloke looked up first, forehead crinkled in confusion. “Sir, is everything all right? Can we help you?”

Rose glanced over next and then blinked in surprise. “Doctor? What are you doing here?”

His hands clenched inside of his pockets and he considered yelling at her, demanding to know why she had _lied to him_ , and just who this stranger was that she was sitting intimately across from. But he opened his mouth and nothing came out—it felt like a heavy weight was pushing down on his chest, dragging him underwater.

Because hadn’t he always suspected it might come to this? Rose might pity him (“he needs you”), might even be fond of him, but in the end, when it came down to it, he wasn’t _quite_ the Time Lord she remembered. Hanging around her flat all day without a job or an income was a far cry from showing her all of time and space.

Rose’s expression changed to one of worry. “Doctor?” she said. She stood up, reaching for him. “Are you all right?”

“I...” he began, and couldn’t get very far, instead staring at her helplessly.

“Doctor?”

His eyes caught on something then—a pile of open textbooks in the middle of the table. He blinked and drew his next breath in a little easier.

He addressed the bloke, “Who are you?”

The man blinked. “I’m Ahmed. Rose’s physics tutor?”

The relief came hot and fast, and he collapsed into Rose’s vacant seat, rubbing his eyes with shaking hands. _Trust Rose_ , he’d thought. _Respect her privacy_. Well done, there.

“Doctor...” Rose began hesitantly, “what are you doing here?”

He pulled his hands away from his face and said, “I followed you.”

“You... what?” Rose said, voice dropping to a hush.

“I know I shouldn’t, I _know_ that, but I never did take too well to letting mysteries lie.” His gaze fell on Ahmed, who the Doctor couldn’t help but notice, bore a striking resemblance to their old pal Adam. He couldn’t stop his scowl. “I just didn’t expect to find you out with _him_.”

“Whoa, mate, I’m just her tutor,” said Ahmed, hands going in the air. He looked at Rose. “Maybe I should go?”

“No,” said Rose. “We’ll go. This has nothing to do with you, Ahmed. I’m sorry. Doctor?”

She none-too-gently nudged him in the side. He plastered on a fake smile and jumped up from the table, giving Ahmed what he considered his most intimidating Time Lord glare. “It was nice meeting you, _Ahmed_.”

And then he turned and followed Rose out of the café.

***

The car ride back to the flat was short and silent. The Doctor avoided looking in Rose’s direction and instead peered out the window, trying to seem intensely fascinated by the city as they drove past.

Inside the flat, the Doctor found he couldn’t take the strained silence any longer. “Hungry?” he asked brightly. He dodged around Rose and into the kitchen, opening the fridge. “We have leftover curry and meatloaf from your mother. The curry is probably the safer bet.” He paused. “Or we could order in. How about pizza? This universe has the most fascinating obsession with putting broccoli on its pizza.”

He finished, voice tapering off into silence. Finally, he turned around, stomach tightening with foreboding.

Rose was staring at him quietly, fiddling nervously with her mobile. She opened her mouth, thought, and then burst out with, “What _was_ that?”

“Well...” began the Doctor.

“What were you _thinking_? You scared Ahmed half to death.”

“Oh, did I?” said the Doctor, scowling. “If you had just _told_ me what you were doing...”

“Oh, and you’re always open and honest with me,” Rose said, but her cheeks turned a pinkish colour.

“That’s different,” he said. “How would you feel in my position, Rose?”

She looked away, sliding her mobile back into her pocket. A disgruntled silence fell and the Doctor impatiently thrummed his fingers on the counter.

“You’re taking physics lessons?” he finally bit out, sharper than he intended.

“Yeah,” Rose said in a small voice. “I sort of... I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“How do you mean?”

“I wanted to help. _You_ ,” she clarified, looking uncomfortable, “so that you weren’t the only one who knew how to take down alien ships with a few buttons.”

Despite himself, he couldn’t help but feel touched, “Oh,” he said, “oh, Rose—you know you don’t have to—”

“But I _do_ ,” she protested, suddenly sounding completely sure of herself. “It started back when I was working on the dimensional cannon—I had to take a crash course almost overnight. But then I got out of the habit.” She paused. “Ahmed’s a really good teacher. He’s a PhD student at the university—I’m really lucky that he makes time to meet with me.”

He couldn’t stop his snort. “Oh, I’m sure he’s very good at twenty-first century physics.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” he said, in what he thought was a very reasonable tone of voice, “you wouldn’t go to the 1600s for a geography lesson, would you?”

Rose’s response was an incredulous stare.

The Doctor took this as a sign he should continue. “And anyway—Rose, you live with the world’s best physicist.” He smirked and tapped his head. “Ahmed can do as many PhDs as he wants, but he’ll still be hundreds of years out of date.”

“Maybe.”

“ _Maybe_?” said the Doctor. “On Gallifrey, we deconstructed the building blocks of the universe at the age of _three_.”

Rose gave a harried sigh. “Doctor, I went to Ahmed ‘cos I didn’t want you teaching me.”

The horrible sinking feeling from earlier came rushing back. “What?” he whispered. “You don’t?”

Rose looked away, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting uncomfortably. “No, that’s not what I meant, it’s just...”

“Just what?”

She waved a hand at him. “You’re... _you_ ,” she said, “and you know how you’re like—deconstructing the universe at the age of three. And here I am, I never even got any A-levels.”

The Doctor stared at her, blinking. “What?”

“I never went to university, never even finished secondary school,” Rose said. “And Ahmed—he’s good at what he does, Doctor. He never makes me feel stupid or like I can’t do it.”

He was still staring at her. “I don’t think you’re stupid,” he said quietly. “I’ve never thought that.”

She softened. “I know that.”

“Then why...?”

She blushed again. “It’s just that...” she said haltingly, “you don’t exactly stop in the middle of an invasion to explain what’s going on in plain English, yeah? And I get _why_ you can’t, and I understand why you get frustrated with us for not keeping up, but all the same, there I am, Rose Tyler without her A-levels, feeling useless.”

“You’re not...” he began and then stopped, swallowing hard. “Do I really make you feel stupid?”

“No,” she said, and then looked away. “Well... not on purpose.”

“Oh,” he said, breathing out into the sudden stillness of the kitchen.

There was a long pause and Rose shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Finally, she said, “You’re right, though. I should have told you about Ahmed.”

The only thing he managed was a tight nod. It was suddenly a lot harder to look at her. She hesitated and then closed the distance between them, tilting her head up, nose almost brushing his chin. “Doctor?”

“Hmm?”

“D’you think,” she began, smile almost shy, “that maybe you could hug me now?”

He managed a weak smile. “Yeah.”

She visibly relaxed and slid her arms around his neck, moving into his arms. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, turning her head to look at his profile, biting her lip like she was considering something.

“What?”

Her grin widened and then she leaned in, lips grazing his throat. He sucked in a breath, arms tightening around her.

“Rose—”

Her hands smoothed down his back. “We just had a row, yeah?”

“It was a slight _disagreement_ ,” the Doctor protested, “I would hardly call it a ‘row.’”

“The thing about having a row—” Rose continued, unabated, “—is that now, according to human tradition, we’re going to have to shag.”

“Oh?”

“Yup,” Rose said seriously, “it’s a very important human ritual.”

“And I have been trying to fit in,” the Doctor said, trying not to think about how Bob and Greta from next door had chased him out of their tulip garden just last weekend after he’d used it as a starting point for their Alien Activity Warning Locator.

“You’ll just have to find some way to manage,” Rose agreed. And then she sucked on his earlobe.

He made a noise that was somewhere between a surprised gasp and a moan. Rose pulled away, looking awfully proud of herself.

The Doctor considered the very real possibility that she was trying to change the subject, that maybe she didn’t want him to keep prying into her physics lessons with Ahmed (he really only wanted to point out that Ahmed’s grasp of the subject was most likely utter rubbish). Then he considered that he didn’t much like fighting with Rose anymore than she did. Besides, he _did_ like trying out funny human rituals—and _this_ one didn’t sound so bad, as far as human rituals went.

Giving in, the Doctor leaned in and kissed her.

***

Rose dozed on her side while the Doctor traced lazy circles over her arm and back. His stomach rumbled uncomfortably, reminding him it was getting late and that they hadn’t eaten yet. He was, however, reluctant to move.

He was warm and content, spooned up against Rose in bed, and as ridiculous as it was, it was precisely this sort of moment that he treasured most of all. Oh, he liked being able to have sex with Rose on a regular basis—no, he _loved_ having sex with Rose—but after so many centuries of people passing in and out of his life, there was something particularly momentous about being able to lie in bed, curled around the woman he loved.

He pressed his lips to the back of Rose’s neck and murmured, “Rose.”

“Hmm?” she mumbled and then rolled over, eyes softening. “Hi.”

He skimmed his fingers over her shoulder and breathed out, “So. Physics lessons.”

She cast her eyes away, stiffening like she was preparing for another argument. “It’s like I said—I know I should have told you, but—”

He cut her off. “Bet you’re doing brilliantly.”

Her smile was pleased. “Yeah?”

“Mmm,” he confirmed with a gentle smile.

She pressed her face into his shoulder, lips brushing his neck. “I can cancel with him,” she said in a rush, “you know, if you want. I don’t really mind having you teach me.”

He brushed a hand down her back, feeling touched by her offer. All the same, he remembered what she said earlier, about how sometimes he could make her feel stupid without meaning to. The problem was, he knew so _much_. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said his training on Gallifrey began straight out of the nursery. It would, he realized, be difficult to know where to start, and even to know how much knowledge would be dangerous given the limitations of this Earth’s timeline.

He twisted a lock of Rose’s hair around his fingers. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her feeling or make her feel like she wasn’t good enough.

“Stay with Ahmed,” he finally said, “he seems like a nice enough bloke.”

Rose looked a little relieved. “He really isn’t so bad,” Rose said. “You might even like him if you gave it a chance.”

The Doctor inclined his head, biting the inside of his lip to keep from making another snide comment about physics in the twenty-first century. “So,” he said brightly, “leftovers?”

Rose snuggled in closer, “Didn’t you say something about ordering in pizza?”

***

The Doctor idly tapped his fingers on the table, shifting back and forth in the café’s hard chair. Next to him, Rose was pouring over an open book, her gaze shifting to his every few seconds. Across from her, Ahmed was doing his best to ignore him completely, instead speaking to Rose in a low and patient tone, “Remember, mass is the item’s only constant—stop being distracted by the gravity.”

“I _know_ that,” Rose said, sounding frustrated. She glanced at the Doctor, flushed, and then looked at the books again, “I just... I can’t get them....”

“Rose, you had this last week.”

Rose huffed out a sigh, eyes darting over to the Doctor’s again. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it, shifting her attention back to the equation in front of her.

The Doctor shifted his chair closer to the table, legs scraping along the floor. Both Rose and Ahmed looked up from the books, neither of them looking particularly pleased at this interruption. The Doctor ignored them and reached into his pocket for his glasses. Placing them on his nose, he bent down next to Rose.

For the first time, Ahmed sounded strained, “Can I help you with something?”

“Aha!” said the Doctor, pointing at the problem. “Of course Rose can’t solve it,” he said dismissively, “the whole concept is impossible. And the mass of an object is _not_ always constant. Blimey, what are they teaching you at that school? That’s an elementary concept, at best.”

Ahmed’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry?”

The Doctor grabbed a red pen off the table and then forcefully drew an “X” through the bottom half of the problem. “There now,” he said. “You see? Much better.” He paused. “Now if we carry the ‘y’ and add in something to account for variable—such as time travel or dimension hopping or that gas on the planet Furstandacan—we will get—”

“Oh my god, I knew I shouldn’t have let you come,” Rose interrupted. She ran a hand through what was becoming very dishevelled hair and then jumped to her feet. “I’m going to the loo,” she announced to no one in particular before turning on her heel and stalking away.

The Doctor felt a pang after Rose left—after all, how could he show off how brilliant he was when she wasn’t even around to see it?—but then Ahmed studied his now much-improved problem and made a low noise of interest.

“You just... you...” he stammered, now looking at the Doctor like he’d invented the printing press, “are you _sure_ about the—”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, waving his hand. He threw down the pen and leaned back. “Like I said, it’s elementary.”

Ahmed scrambled to study the new equation, nose practically brushing the page as his eyes scanned the problem back and forth. Finally satisfied, he raised his head, wide-eyed gaze falling on the Doctor. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“What _are_ they teaching you at that University?”

The barb did nothing to dim Ahmed’s shining look. “This is the work of a genius, Mr Smith.”

“ _Well_...”

“I’m working on this sort of... this paper on the general theory of relativity.” Ahmed’s head disappeared beneath the table as he rifled through his briefcase. “Here we go,” he said, emerging with a stack of papers covered with red notes and corrections. He hesitated and then slowly slid it over to the Doctor. “Would you take a look at it for me?”

The Doctor opened his mouth, prepared to tell Ahmed that his conception of gravity was no doubt horribly out of date. But then his eyes looked so _hopeful_ that the Doctor found himself giving in. He took the stack of papers from Ahmed and flipped through them, eyes quickly scanning over the typed words and hastily scribbled red notes and corrections.

“This... this is _good_ ,” murmured the Doctor, “ _very_ good.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you gave Rose any lessons on the theory of parallel universes, did you?”

“Several,” said Ahmed, “the whole thing was completely speculative, of course, but she was so interested.” He frowned. “You don’t... mind, do you?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said the Doctor, almost forgetting that he was supposed to be indignant that Rose preferred taking physics lessons from some young and good looking bloke. He slid the stack of papers back over to Ahmed. “Your reasoning behind gravity is way off, of course, but it’s as good a start as anything—better than I’ve seen in a while anyway. And that is saying something.”

“Really? The gravity?” said Ahmed. He hunched over the paper, now scribbling furiously along the bottom of it.

“Well, now, Ahmed, there’s no need to start right from scratch. I’m sure your conclusions are.... acceptable for your level,” the Doctor hastened to say, suddenly _very_ conscience that he was treading a dangerous line between encouraging human ingenuity and revealing all the future secrets of the universe.

“I understand, Mr Smith,” said Ahmed solemnly. “I have to derive my own conclusions. But if you don’t mind, there is... one more thing I’d like to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

Ahmed suddenly looked shy. “You and Rose... you two are very close?”

“What?” said the Doctor, feeling something sharp stab against his chest. He sat up a little straighter. “ _Yes_ ,” he said, “of course we’re _close_. No, more than close. Closer than close! We’re... well, not married as such, not exactly—not if you don’t count that time on Terra 13, and we were only putting it on to avoid beheading, and... and, anyway, that’s _not_ the point.” He finished the last bit with a glare in Ahmed’s direction, hoping he had made himself very, very clear.

“Oh,” said Ahmed, looking so deflated that the Doctor _almost_ felt bad for him. “Well,” he said, mustering up a smile, “Rose is very lucky, then.”

The Doctor blinked. “Sorry?”

Ahmed turned his gaze towards his paper, now beginning to blush. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No,” began the Doctor, “it’s just... really?” He leaned in closer. “Me?”

Ahmed looked faintly amused. “Rose is very lovely, but not really my type.”

“Oh, no, of course,” said the Doctor. He leaned back in his chair, unable to suppress his grin. “Well, no harm done.”

He was still grinning when Rose eventually emerged from the toilets. Hopping up from his seat, he met her just outside the loo.

She took one look at his beaming face and frowned. “What did you do?”

The Doctor waggled his eyebrows in reply. “Ahmed was a brilliant choice for a tutor. Well done.”

Rose was still staring at him suspiciously. “Are you all right?”

He tapped her on the nose. “Oh, yes,” he said. He leaned in to press his lips to hers. “I’ll see you at home.” He winked. “You are going to have a great lesson.”


End file.
